'I did meet him, and because I felt he's nice and had a sense of humour and he seemed to be a tolerant person in that he could handle having a wife who had an independent career of her own, I thought it was wise to accept the proposal,' she told The New York Times.

Benazir told the Los Angeles Times: 'For me the choice was not between a love marriage or an arranged marriage but between agreeing to this or not getting married at all... An arranged marriage may seem traditional, but what is not traditional is the fact I'm not abandoning my identity or my career. If I had thought it might hurt my political career, I know I would never have taken this step. I would never have gotten married at any stage. I would have never sought personal happiness at the cost of my country. If people have given their lives for the cause of freedom and constitutional rule, then I surely could have sacrificed marriage and children

Many years later she told Outlook magazine: 'Personal life is sacrificed on the altar of political commitment. This is because the public is the political family. To succeed and reach the top, most families, irrespective of gender, whether in politics or other professions, have to go the extra mile, consequently sacrificing personal interests to the larger cause.'

And to The New York Times she said: 'I think our bond grew much deeper as a consequence of his imprisonment, because he then shared what I had known and we became much closer emotionally'.

Image: Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir Bhutto's husband with his daughter Asifa at his home in Karachi, after she arrived in Pakistan. Zardari had recently been released from jail after eight years imprisonment. Photograph: Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images